Revisiting online reviews: signals of latent reviewer traits mediate the review length-helpfulness relationship
Consumers evaluate the helpfulness of online reviews using both characteristics of the review and the reviewer. We explore whether online review length signals latent information about the reviewer's credibility, reflected by the reviewer's honesty and social status. Analyzing a dataset of...
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| Published in | Journal of marketing theory and practice Vol. 32; no. 3; pp. 346 - 361 |
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| Main Authors | , |
| Format | Journal Article |
| Language | English |
| Published |
Routledge
02.07.2024
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| Online Access | Get full text |
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| Summary: | Consumers evaluate the helpfulness of online reviews using both characteristics of the review and the reviewer. We explore whether online review length signals latent information about the reviewer's credibility, reflected by the reviewer's honesty and social status. Analyzing a dataset of online reviews, we show that review length has opposing curvilinear relationships with reviewer honesty and social status. Taken together, long and short reviews communicate that the reviewer is less honest, but has higher social status, while medium length reviews signal greater reviewer honesty, but lower social status. Further, reviewer honesty and social status each mediate the review lengthhelpfulness relationship. |
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| ISSN: | 1069-6679 1944-7175 |
| DOI: | 10.1080/10696679.2023.2196636 |